Wednesday, February 08, 2017

Tom Kratman and I have approached Castalia House with an idea put forth in this blog last week about doing a California Secession Anthology: and it’s a go!

It’ll be the next installment of Kratman’s Riding the Red Horse anthology and it will focus on a fictional successful Secession of California and resulting Civil War within the US. Currently we’re developing a timeline for the conflict with the assistance of an MI Officer who had POTUS level briefing access during the Iraq war.

Once the timeline is completed we’ll be inviting a Dream Team of today’s best MilSciFi and Science Fiction authors to game the ruination of the Golden State within short stories set against the backdrop of the conflict. We expect controversy to accompany the launch as the real-time craziness of the current culture war probably spirals into a mess no one could’ve conceived. But controversy sells and we’re stubborn enough to try, so… game on.

And if you look in the comments, you'll even be able to see who a few of the contributors will be.

California is not seceding. Not until we build 15GW of new dispatchable capacity at least. And build a few cubic miles of water reservoirs. And invisible pink unicorns dance in the streets of San Francisco.

Any chance you can get Jerry Pournelle to contribute? As a longtime resident of California, he may have some insight into this scenario.

Another person to contact would be Victor Davis Hanson, another longtime resident of CA, thought in a rural, now mostly Mexican area. His previous fiction is historical, but he might be able to contribute to the book, perhaps even a non-fiction piece speculating on his thoughts of a CALEXIT scenario.

California has a chance if the secession frees magic from the dampening effects of the Pentagon. Then the real struggle will be between the Hollywood Wiccan Cabalists and the Santeria brujeira of La Raza Cosmica.

Worse. If you count the 2007 season finale loss to Green Bay and the 2009 season opener and week 2 losses to New Orleans and Minnesota, respectively (and not counting preseason games), their total losing streak added up to 19 games.

At least one story should have a Scientologist coup deposing the Silly Valley billionerds. According to Leah Remini John Travolta has license to murder. Theta level Tom Cruise will be the Grand Inquisitor. I can just see it, a wall around the Hollywood SeaOrg Vatican to keep the true believers from escaping.

Now, a major military scholar is calling for the creation of “megacities combat units” – a proposal that is a major and drastic departure from warfare of the past, which has been designed away from cities. Now, military and paramilitary units, as well as local law enforcement, much engage the population itself – with all the unpredictability afforded by a real life, complex situation filled with combatants, non-combatants and friendlies behind any and all doors, etc.

I'd be interested in reading this as well... but mostly to see the timeline of events that form the basis of the anthology. Obviously there needs to be something far more than LA and SF going "ew, Donald Trump, I can't even" to galvanize the state towards cutting loose in a unified fashion; I daresay an independent Cali would have even more to fear from US loyalists within its borders turning it into Sunny Yugoslavia. And yeah, getting Niven and/or Pournelle onboard would be great, too (even though they'd surely be appalled by the premise); I recall Oath of Fealty featured towed icebergs to get around the arcology's water situation.

Orville wrote:Now, a major military scholar is calling for the creation of “megacities combat units” – a proposal that is a major and drastic departure from warfare of the past, which has been designed away from cities.

If by "now" we mean since at least 2003 maybe 2005, this is what William S Lind's columns have been about, when he's not celebrating the Kaiser's birthday. There's a major military scholar.

(Martin van Creveld has been harping on this for a long time, too, but then again Israelis get a lot of own-urban combat experience so it's not surprising they develop appropriate modus operandi.)

In the meantime, "People's Republic" by Kurt Schlichter was a good read on this subject. Not to give away the plot, but in his scenario, more than just California breaks away. But the plot takes place primarily in California...

tz wrote:I think you mean "Victoria", not "Arcadia" for the Lind novel.

Yes, that's it, Victoria.

For anyone wondering whether to read it, it begins with the [female, gay, satanist] Bishop of Boston being burned at the stake. In the near future.

Highlights (so many good parts but spoilers): Lesbian-flown F22s against men using guerrilla tactics on the California border. Defenestration of an HHSS bureaucrat. Tar and feathers. Really, tar and feathers. Crucifixions. Race-realism and Nazi baddies. A big city gets nuked. Über-luddite.

The rest of the USA enters a golden age where all left wingery is hunted down and destroyed, and they colonize space, and nearby solar clusters aboard ships named "Pizza Monsters Doom" and "We Dont Care".

"Conflict arises among the States that want to leave Cali alone and the Kratman types."

There is, of course, no reason not to let California go, Jaime. They surely won't serve as a conduit for more illegal immigration. The border that suddenly becomes not only about 8 times longer but considerably friendlier to crosses will not be crossed, even so. Millions of liberal Californians won't flee the nightmare they'll have created to create more nightmares among us. We won't need - nor even have the slightest use for - any of the ports on the Pacific (because Washington and Oregon would never follow Cali out, anymore than Alabama followed South Carolina). We have no reason to want them to take their fair share of the national debt. Naturally, once New York, New England, New Jersey, Illinois, Oregon, and Washington follow California out, we and they will be perfectly happy, and never fight, because we hate each other in perfect amity. And if anyone believes any of that, they're idiots.

Since you seem to want to live in a much smaller and more vulnerable country, might I suggest that you move to one? I recommend that libertarian paradise, Albania.

Some things are worth more than mere money, Jose. Moreever, do note that a) crush means different things, and in no wise means the actual scouring of an area down to bedrock, while b) the section on selling as slaves those not killed and who failed to support the United States means we need not lose all the GDP, nor even most of it.

Tom Kratman wrote:Some things are worth more than mere money, Jose. Moreover, do note that a) crush means different things, and in no wise means the actual scouring of an area down to bedrock, while b) the section on selling as slaves those not killed and who failed to support the United States means we need not lose all the GDP, nor even most of it.

I hesitate to respond, as I don't want to delay this book (take my money, please!), but there's an underlying misconception here that must be addressed. In three points:

1. In an information economy, the value is in the people and not equitably distributed at that. So, a $1B lab with 1000 workers is worthless if the top 20-50 researchers in that lab are motivated to be uncreative, let alone disruptive. Even in the extractive plus industrial economy of the early 1920s, France didn't get from their occupation of the Ruhr anywhere close to the productivity they expected, due to passive resistance. Slaves have little incentive to come up with creative ideas to benefit their enslavers, and we really live in a creativity-based economy not an information-processing economy.

2. If anything, that 14% of GDP underestimates the importance of California to the US and world economy, or more precisely it underestimates the importance of California-based nodes to the network that creates and maintains technological advantage and propels economic growth. A corollary of this networking is that other great powers (China comes to mind; they hold a lot of US debt, so they can pressure US that way) might have an incentive in preserving the network more than keeping the US a political union.

3. Information economies are a lot more integrated than is apparent by the movement of either goods or people. For example [SPOILERS for Victoria] when Lind basically advocates a "simpler" existence at the end of Victoria, he forgot to tell his readers that most modern technology and medicine would soon end. Yes, end, not stagnate. Without the information economy infrastructure, the products of that economy don't simply become industrial commodities (what most people assume), they become magical incantations ("press this button, wait three seconds") dependent on a shrinking pool of working magic (factories and machinery, yes, but also qualified lab techs and maintenance engineers).

And I don't really care. Crucifixion is, if it comes down to it, a wonderful motivator. Crucifixion of families can be better still.

But even if not, even if we lost 14% of our GDP to obliterate 50% of our problems, it would be a bargain. Even if we lost 14% or more of our GDP to prevent California from continuing its sheer perversion of the country it would be a bargain. And, if it's a question of losing California, or Cali's 14%+ of GDP, and still having it pervert our country by serving as a conduit for barbarian migration, or becoming such a freak fest that slightly less insanely liberal whites inflict themselves on the rest of us, then crushing it is _still_ worth doing.

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